Orange Maple Whiskey Salmon

My grandfather always loved the rye (and salmon for that matter) and doing a maple glazed salmon appeals to the native side of my ancestry. I juiced it up with some fresh orange peel and a little bit of orange juice. The flavour was a wonderful sweet counterpoint to the softness of the salmon and this dish will be entering my regular rotation. I cheated a bit and just bought some preboned salmon from the local market since I couldn't get to the good fishmonger in time to make the meal, but prepare your personal salmon as you like it.

Ingredients

Note: Because the amounts vary depending on the amount of salmon you're cooking I haven't included measurements, it's fairly easy to eyeball though.

• Salmon for each person you're serving, remember that it's a VERY rich fish, so a small square will fill most people. I made three servings from this piece.
• Pure Maple Syrup, preferably quebec or vermont. Here I'm using the ontario variety they have at this house, but I'll be using my Sirop Quebecois when I go home again.
• Rye Whiskey: I suppose you could use JD or Bourbon, but this is a :canada: dish so I'm using good old Rye, unfortunately I'm also using CC, because I forgot to buy a small bottle of something better, and I don't want to use my hosts good stuff.
• Orange Peel: You can use just zest, but when I'm making a syrup with citrus I generally add a bit of zest, then throw some big hunks of the peel in there. As an added bonus chewing the peel after the syrup is done is tasty as hell.

Method

• Create your salmon servings, I thought about doing rounds, but I couldn't find a ring in this kitchen and the piece wasn't of an ideal shape for it anyway. Try to make them roughly the same thickness so they cool at the same speed

• Zest part of your orange then make a few long strips of peel as well.

• Start the glaze by adding a generous pour of maple syrup to a bowl.

• Add a large shot of whiskey to the bowl and mix vigorously to combine

• Transfer to a saucepan on low heat, add zest, orange peel and a small amount of juice then cook until it thickens a it into a nice glaze, when it's ready it should coat the spoon and drip slowly off.

• Oil a baking pan well and add salmon. Salt and Pepper fish to your taste.

• Using a brush (god these silicon ones are awesome, buying one as soon as I leave here) completely coat the salmon in at least 2 coats of glaze until it shines. Return the remaining glaze to the stove on super low and leave it to thicken a bit more for sauce purposes.

• Cook at 375F until cooked throughout (depends upon the thickness of your fish) usually about 10-15 mins max for this size of piece. Salmon is pretty easy to tell when it's done though.

• Remove, Plate and add extra glaze as desired... YUM!